Title: Brand communities for market trend discovery: a study to advance entrepreneurial marketing research

Authors: Dhruv Bhatli; Fabian Eggers; Katherine Gundolf

Addresses: IRG Research Center, University of Paris Est, Route de Choisy, 94010 Créteil Cedex, France. ' Menlo College, 1000 El Camino Real, Atherton, CA 94027, USA. ' Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier Business School, Montpellier Research in Management, 2300, Avenue des Moulins, 34185 Montpellier Cedex 4, France

Abstract: Information management has an important role for small and resource constrained firms. However the role of consumer insights in entrepreneurial marketing has remained under-researched, specifically on how to gather, collect and access relevant information in the digitised consumer universe. This netnographic study fills this gap and proposes brand communities as a feasible source of valuable entrepreneurial marketing related insights, which can help small and resource constrained entrepreneurial firms to exploit opportunities and lower perceived market risks.

Keywords: entrepreneurial marketing; brand communities; information management; netnography; small firms; entrepreneurship; market research; resource constraints; virtual communities; online communities; web-based communities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2012.047610

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2012 Vol.16 No.4, pp.422 - 435

Published online: 14 Aug 2014 *

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